[Grok-dev] Grok site: changing "Learn" to "Documentation" in the main navigation

[Jan Ulrich Hasecke]

Am 03.01.2008 um 00:06 schrieb Kevin Teague:

> Documentation is likely to be more easily understood I think be people
> looking for ... documentation. Although I do like the symmetry of  
> having
> verbs for the four main site sections. If we changed all of the main
> sections in the navigator to nouns we would have:
>
>  * Evaluate -> About
>
>  * Learn -> Documentation
>
>  * Develop -> Project (?)
>
>  * Participate -> Community
>

Ok, the site is in English and maybe it sounds cool to have verbs, if  
you are a native speaker. To all other it simply does not matter and  
if you would translate these verbs into German it would sound very  
much like baby speak to German ears.

If you use verbs you might address readers more directly. But doesn't  
it sound like an imperative? Evaluate! Learn! Develop! In German it  
would be something between plain infinitive (to evaluate) and  
imperative and is very suitable for menus in programmes. But if I  
click on "send as mail" the programme sends as mail and not me. In  
our case we want people to read a lot of stuff, so it might sound  
like an imperative. And If I read "Evaluate" I expect a lot of work  
to – evaluate. If I read "About" I expect a one-pager to get it all  
in a concise manner.

So I would plead for the most understandable version. If you look at  
a webpage there are only fractions of a second to get what it is all  
about. I would have no problems with nouns in menus and verbs in the  
buttons, because the buttons shall really address the reader.

juh
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